1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to telecommunications services and more particularly to a method and system for facilitating construction of a canned message in a microbrowser environment.
2. Description of Related Art
Communication is a basic function of the human race. Society would be unable to function without people being able to communicate with each other. Whether it is for business or for pleasure, communication is essential to our everyday life. Although people have been communicating for over a millennium, the ability to communicate with one another over long distances is a more recent advance. Telecommunications refines the “art and science” of communication.
Telecommunications technology offers people a number of ways to communicate with each other. The wireless handheld device is one of the more popular modes of communication. The wireless handheld device may be a cellular telephone, pager, or personal digital assistant (PDA), for example, that an individual may readily carry to communicate with others. The beauty of such handheld devices is that they facilitate communication between individuals in a variety of ways, for instance, by voice and by text.
The modern handheld device may have a display screen for displaying text and a character-input device for entering characters. The display screen may be, for example, a Liquid Crystal Display (LCD). The character-input device may be, for example, a standard 12-key Dual Tone Multi-Frequency (DTMF) keypad. The advantage of having the display screen and the character-input device on a wireless handheld device is that it facilitates text-based communications.
A. Microbrowser
Only recently has wireless telecommunications sufficiently advanced to permit wireless connectivity over the Internet. Landline-based computers have been used for many years to access the Internet. A more recent development, however, is the ability for wireless handheld devices, to connect to the Internet. The microbrowser is one application that enables a user of a wireless handheld device to exchange instructions with network devices on the Internet. For example, the microbrowser may send instructions to a server to perform functions requested by the user. The microbrowser may also receive instructions from the server that comprise content stored on the server. The method in which a microbrowser communicates with the server typically conforms to a standard protocol. One such protocol is Wireless Application Protocol (WAP).
WAP defines an architecture for exchanging content between a wireless handheld device, a gateway, and a server. WAP typically employs a markup language to facilitate transferring content between the server and the wireless handheld device. A markup language is a set of instructions for instructing the microbrowser to perform a particular function. For example, a markup language may instruct the microbrowser to display text, request user input, or send content to the server. Wireless Markup Language (WML) is the markup language that is compatible with WAP. Other languages, however, that a microbrowser may interpret include Handheld Device Markup Language (HDML) and Compact Hyper-Text Markup Language (cHTML).
“Tags” are generally the instructions of the markup language. Commonly, a “tag document” embodies at least one tag (i.e., instruction). The microbrowser, in conjunction with the gateway, may interpret the tags in the tag document and display the translated document on the display screen. In WML and HDML, a tag document that describes the content of the display screen is typically referred to as a card. If at least one tag document embodies tags describing more than one card, the at least one tag document may be referred to as a “deck of cards.” A user may navigate in the microbrowser environment by moving through the deck of cards. The cards may comprise information stored on the server, thus permitting the user to access information resident on the server.
Typically, a card may also be encoded to instruct the microbrowser to program the use of softkeys resident on the handheld device. A softkey is a programmable key that accepts input from the user. The handheld device may have one or two softkeys, typically located below the display screen and under a label (on the display screen), that identifies the function of the softkey. A card may program one of the softkeys as a “primary key”—typically the left key with functionality related to operating the microbrowser. For example, the primary key may be a navigation key, which the user may press to browse to another card.
Conventionally, the microbrowser may assign another softkey (e.g., the “secondary key”—usually the right key) to facilitate generic system (browser) functions. Generic system (browser) functions may include “BACK” for going to the previous card or “CLEAR” for clearing contents on the display screen. Other functions are also possible.
B. Microbrowser Cards
Text-entry cards and choice cards are two common types of cards that the microbrowser may display. Each type of card may be classified according to its function. The text-entry card may be a card for enabling the user of a handheld device to create, modify, or otherwise edit text on the handheld device. The text-entry card may comprise at least one title segment for displaying the title of the card (e.g., text) and at least one text-entry field. A user may enter text in the text-entry field and the microbrowser may then send the text to the server. Other arrangements are also possible.
The choice card is another type of card. Like the text-entry card, the choice card has a title segment, which usually identifies the subject matter of the choice card. The choice card, however, has a choice-list segment in place of, or along with, the text-entry segment. The choice-list segment may have a list of selectable options. Each option, known as a choice-item, is typically accompanied by a corresponding number. The user may select a choice-item on the list by pressing the corresponding number key on the character-input device. Alternatively, the user may use scroll keys to highlight a desired item and then press a softkey to indicate the selected choice-item to the microbrowser. In response, the microbrowser may display another card or to take another designated action associated with the selected item.
Each text-entry card or choice-card is typically encoded with a display block. The display block defines the content of the card viewable on the display screen of the wireless handheld device. For example, the display block of a text-entry card may include a title segment, a text-entry segment, and softkey labels. Similarly, the display block of a choice card may include a title segment, a choice list segment, and softkey labels.
Commonly, all of the content in the display block cannot be viewed at once on the display screen. The display block may have more characters than what may fit on the display screen. To accommodate the limited display screen, the microbrowser may use a concept of a display window. The display window may define the contents of the display block currently viewable on the display screen of the handheld device. For example, the card may be programmed so that initially a portion of the content in the title segment and all or a portion of the content in the choice-item segment are within the display window and thus viewable on the display screen (softkey labels may be always viewable on the display screen regardless of whether they are within the display window). To view portions of the display block not on the display screen (e.g., additional choice-items), the desired contents may be shifted into the display window. A user may use the scroll keys, for example, to shift the contents of the display block into the display window.
C. Text-Entry on Handheld Wireless Devices
A microbrowser facilitates communications on the handheld device. For example, the microbrowser simplifies the process of accessing the Internet, engaging in interactive chat sessions, and/or exchanging messages.
The relatively simple character-input device of typical handheld devices, however, may limit the functionality of the handheld device. The handheld device may have a character-input device comprising a numeric keypad labeled with one or more alphabetic characters (i.e., a 12 key DTMF keypad). For example, the “2” key on a handheld device may be labeled with the letters “A”, “B”, and “C”, the “3” key may be labeled with the letters “D”, “E”, and “F”, and so forth. Such a keypad may be efficient for numeric entry, but deficient for text entry. The keypad may be deficient because, although it does allow for entry of characters (e.g., in a text-entry field), it does not inherently distinguish between the letters associated with a given key. For instance, if a user presses the “2” key, it is unclear whether the user intends to type “A”, “B”, or “C”.
The “triple-tap method” is the most prevalent text-entry method. The triple-tap method is premised on distinguishing between letters on a numeric keypad. According to the triple-tap method, a user may press a numeric key multiple times to indicate the letter that a user wishes to type. For instance, to type the letter “B”, a user may press the “2” key twice (since “B” is the second letter on that key), and to type the letter “C”, the user may press the “2” key three times (since “C” is the third letter on that key). The advantage of this method is that a user may enter virtually any character string on the handheld device by pressing the associated digits a corresponding number of times.
The “predictive text-entry method” is an improvement over the triple-tap method. Unlike the triple-tap method, the predictive text-entry method may predict the character string that a user wishes to enter on a handheld device. The predictive text-entry method may correlate numbers that the user enters with one or more text strings corresponding to the numbers. For example, if a user enters the numeric string “4-6-6-3” on a standard 12-key DTMF keypad, the predictive text-entry method may determine (using the alphabetic characters labeled on the numeric digits and a dictionary database) that the numeric string corresponds to the text strings (e.g., words) (i) H-O-M-E, (ii) G-O-O-D, (iii) H-O-O-D, (iv) G-O-N-E or (v) H-O-N-E. The microbrowser may then present the list of words as a choice-items on a choice card. The user may select the word that he intended to type. Therefore, the predictive text entry method enables a user to enter text in a handheld device with as few key presses as the number of letters in the text.